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I tried it on PC some years ago, back when CGW gave away the full game on one of its CDs, and my experience was pretty much this:

Build up my dudes, start some research, shoot down a UFO, awwww yeah, visit the crash site, OMG all my dudes are dead.

I decided that it either just wasn't for me or that I didn't have the time to put into learning how to not my ass kicked instantaneously.

But I kept hearing all these rapturous stories about it, so I scavenged up an old PS1 copy and ripped it to my PSP. Unsurprisingly, my experience on the PSP was almost exactly the same.

This game is obtuse in a way that is simultaneously infuriating and strangely compelling. I want it to yield its secrets to me, but I have no idea how to proceed. It's like a relationship, for crying out loud! So this is my dating angst thread, but for X-Com. Please, help me to love this game the way you guys love it.

Are there any recommended tweak guides in making the presentation more palpable on modern systems? I can play in a teeny tiny window on my high res monitor, but when I blow it up to full screen, the screen is pixelated and stretched to 16:9 and the geoscape & tactical views are quite sluggish.

Just out of curiosity, Tamren, what are your equipment templates for your different roles?

At this moment we are using 95% earth equipment. Our Medics finally got laser pistols. But apart from one laser rifle that I think is on Prozac, Assaults and Snipers all carry rifles. Our two heavies have a heavy cannon (which I tend to think of as a grenade launcher) and an autocannon. A terror mission just popped up so I might swap out the rifle on Prozac for a rocket launcher.

Pretty sure it does. The Steam version is the original DOS version. When you fire up XCOMUtil it will detect what kind of install you have and react accordingly. I'm not using it at the moment. The last time I modded my game was when I was playing the windows version of XCOM. Its a bit different, everything runs a bit faster. The menus don't take as long to open and close for instance. And the music is different, remixed to be less DOS-ie.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Anyone thinking about picking up any of the X-COM games, they're $1.24 each on Steam today only.

Its practically free! I would just buy them individually and skip Interceptor and Enforcer.

Missions begins. Oh god, Cyberdisk sighted and were not off the ramp yet! *Kshoooooooo - BOOM* Direct hit from Devil's rocket! But its still up. Redwing hops off the ramp and misses the disk 3 times. Davet hops off the other side and shows him how its done. After a double tap of rifle fire the disk self destructs and collapses half of a nearby house. After moving up Tamren and Khoram to watch the ramp we end turn.

Crap were taking heavy fire from the east. Multiple sectoids in an open park. Khoram is hit!, just a flesh wound. Our turn. The nearest sectoid is behind a tree. Devil overshoots twice but his rockets don't hit any civvies, so I'll give that a pass. Davet can't hit the alien but manages to remove the tree. Khoram takes a shot and the Sectoid is gibbed by a massive explosion. It must have set off something, that was too big for a cannon shot.

New turn. Davet takes a stun bomb to the face and goes down. I can now see a bit more of the local terrain. We landed in a corner, the park to the east marking the map edge. To the right is a large 3 story apartment which is where the sectoid with the stun weapon fled. Between us is a large wooden fence that I suspect has multiple sectoids behind it. I'm putting everyone in a firing line facing the fence, pending its removal by kaboomination. Devil takes a shot and the fence is gone. Sectoid! Tamren shoots him twice in the head and he goes down. LZ secure. Squad 1 led by Tamren is going to clear the building. Prozac and the rest are going south across a road to search some warehouses using smoke from all these rocket impacts for cover.

New turn. Lots of plasma fire, the tank takes a hit but it bounces off the turret armour. A sectoid appears in the doorway of a building. Pignoli lights up the doorway with his autocannon and the alien goes down! Squad 1 moves up to the building and deploys around the door. Squad 2 advances and... Cyberdisk sighted!. Its on the road. Prozac takes aim with his rocket launcher and... hits a fence. Devils turn, he shoots. Direct hit! But its still up. The rest of squad 2 opens fire. Grubber shoots. Crap, he just hit Moondragon in the bacl, second shot hits the Cyberdisk. Its down!

New turn. Moondragon is down and bleeding. We had better finish this quickly. No new sightings. Pignoli is acting a bit strange... Squad 1 advances. Davet is down, so I'm sending Tamren up top to provide cover. Everyone else pushes the first floor with Redwing on point. Empty. Squad 2 moves up to a fence. Dead civilian sighted in the warehouse. Devil and Prozac remove more walls, but can't reveal the enemy.

New turn. Redwing moves up to a window. *BLAM!* Redwing is down! Didn't even see it coming, poor guy. Judge peeks out and spots Redwings killer. Its a Cyberdisk floating in the sky, crap. All he has is a pistol and shooting it from 10 feet away seems less than wise. Judge throws a grenade out the window and retreats back around a corner. Squad 2 continues to advance. Sectoid sighted. Devil shoot rockets but they fly over his shoulder, out a window and off a map. Nice going. Since the tank is now blocking everyone elses view of the sectoid the rest of squad 2 turns and attacks the cyberdisk. Milkman sprays laser bolts all over the place but does hit twice. Khoram takes aim with his cannon and the second shot brings the disk down.

New turn. Pignoli wet his pants and is now running up and down the stairs. Devil shoots his last 2 rockets and brings that other sectoid down. Prozac only has two rockets left and I forgot to give him a pistol. On his way over to get Moondragon's gun he spots a sectoid in an alley!. The angle is wrong for the rest of the squad, so Khoram throws a grenade. Squad 1 is a bit scattered, judge is moving up to join Tamren on the top floor. A door is open...

New turn. Uh o, Pignoli went bezerk. Maybe leaving him in a room with 2 civvies was a bad idea. Over the sounds of Pignoli making shark chum the grenade goes off with a *WHUMP*. Sectoid down, and Khoram adds another notch to his belt. Moondragon finally bleeds out :(. There is an enemy taking potshots at us from the far southwest corner so I'm moving everyone in that direction. The Devil rolls his tank down the street. Sectoid sighted! He is standing in the open. Judge, this time from the second floor window opens fire. With near perfect accuracy he shoots the same spot 3 times in a row. Unfortunately this is one space to the right of the target. Tamren fires 6 shots from the third floor, more misses. Khoram now movign west to join the fight spots a sectoid down an alley. His shot misses. Grubber tries next, a hit! Not enough, the sectoid returns fire and hits a wall. Milkman tries his luck, on his 5th shot he hits the sectoid in the chest and it goes down.

New turn. The sectoid in the field blasts away at Devil. But he only has a pistol and just sparks up the paint a bit. Judge and Pignoli are panicking and running all over the apartment. Tamren fires a single shot from the third floor window and finally brings the sectoid down. The remains of squad 2 press on southward. It seems the row of warehouses and stores have a gas station beyond them. Walking down an ally Grubber bumps his head on a cyberdisk and flees, dodging plasma fire. Khoram prepares a det pack....

New turn. Judge is still out of it. But Pignoli finally gets himself together. Devil rolls the tank around a corner to reveal the cyberdisk and a sectoid in the middle of the gas station. But this is a second sectoid with a heavy plasma. Devil retreats. Grubber is farther east than anyone else at this point, taking a route through a warehouse to get to the gas station instead of going down the alley beside it. He spots a sectoid, but its behind a crate, so he throws a grenade. Milkman moves down the alley just far enough to make sure the disk is still there, and Khoram chucks the det pack up and over the intervening building, placing it right beside. Everyone else advances.

New turn. KABOOM! Sectoid down, Disk Obliterated. Grubber, now moving to join everyone else spots a cyberdisk through a window in the far east alleyway. The only other spot we haven't searched yet is a lone warehouse sitting in the southwest corner. Ominously its full of holes and bodies... What remains of squad 1 moves to the warehouse, squad 2 moves into the warehouse and takes cover behind boxes. The only other detpack remaining is on Tamren who is on his way.

New turn. Prozac aims through the window. Direct hit! But damn. That also reveals a SECOND cyberdisk. Milkman who is done searching the warehouse opens fire from the far end of the map. Direct hit! Mission ends.

Mission Tally:
Killed 10 aliens. Lost Moondragon and Redwing. Saved 8 civilians and lost 6. Total score 225. I really hope we have medkits next time.

BTW the way I write this works as follows. I have XCOM windowed. So when I choose a course of action I write it here. Then depending on how it works out I write the result after it.